I guess I must have misheard all of my female friends who had either been raped or had a friend raped in college. Yes, every woman I knew in college and graduate school was either raped of had a friend who was raped. Then there was the frat boy who made a habit of holding women prisoner in his room (they only prosecuted him for three of them). Of course he was actually expelled when he was subsequently caught cheating in a class taught by one of my dissertation committee members; rape and false imprisonment were not enough to concern the administration. It's so nice to know none of that sort of thing really happens.

Nice circus. Now where's my bread?

Maybe I’m just being petty, but now that the political tide is turning against them, I’m just not ready to forgive and forget the moral, environmental and fiscal crimes of a group of people who rarely admit to fallibility. I genuinely fear that these magic-believers will poison the resurgent New Deal rising in America. They have already nearly turned America into Taliban West with their war on science and compassion. Let’s face it; had we properly funded education, particularly science education (not science facts, but scientific thought), then these magic-believers would have long ago ceased to plague us. I see the war on science that has been waged by the magic-believers as the single largest threat to the continued existence of our nation and, considering human-caused climate catastrophe, to our planet.

Outstanding article! This is the first time I have seen an article in the popular press that acknowledges the underestimations inherent in the IPCC reports. Thank you for setting the record straight in such a clear fashion.

Now, what are we going to do about it? Most people will probably go in for some sort of “kick the problem down the road” techno-fix. They’ll look forward to buying a Prius, a front-loading washer, a few compact fluorescents and combining their errands and tell themselves that that is all that can reasonably be done. Sadly, such an attitude dooms us all. Look at the data (or the statements from those who collected/interpreted it). We need to cut our emissions by 80-90% by 2020 or risk watching some fearsome positive feedbacks kick in. And make no mistake about it, those feedbacks likely doom our descendents to truly horrible existences.

What does 80% reduction of carbon footprint look like? No fossil-fool powered wheelchairs for able-bodied people. No imported food. Massive increases in local, organic farms. Severe restrictions in meat consumption. Imposition of individual carbon quotas (like the gas, sugar and flour quotas we used while combating the fascist menace in the 1940s). No more cheap plastic crap from China. Can we handle it? Are we as tough as our grandparents or will we let the planet die because we just can’t show up at work with a little sweat on our brows? I’m currently not optimistic that we will make the right choice but would love to be surprised.

Very few reasonable people deny the reality of human-caused global warming. The differences mostly center on how soon the fecal matter hits the fan and how much of it there will be. Projections from climate models now indicate that a failure to cut back emissions in high-energy-use countries like the U.S. by 80-90% in the next fifteen years will very likely cause the planet to reach certain tipping points (positive feedback loops) which will lead to genocidal drought in Africa and South America and flooding of entire countries like Bangladesh in Asia.

It is no wonder we in the U.S. refuse to give up our energy-intensive conveniences: the first victims of global warming have brown skin. The same culture that defined black people as fractions of humans (for political representation purposes only, insert your own dark joke here) understandably has difficulty feeling a need to protect Africans, Asians and South Americans from the ravages of the climate change that we are causing.

Of course, when the reality of permanent drought in the southern half of the U.S. and intense cycles of flooding and drought in the Midwest hit home, will we change our tune? Perhaps, but by then it will probably be too late to make much difference. The same American racism that caused us to allow slavery may ultimately be the undoing of our civilization

Nice review. Things have certainly changed since the Black Panthers I grew up with. I just finished a related book from the West Coast (L.A.), female/child angle. It is called "Love and Consequences" by Margaret Jones and was reviewed in the N.Y. Times yesterday. Both books leave me wondering,can we find a way to give every child equal, or at least reasonable, opportunities to succeed in this country?

Should Exxon and other corporate polluters pay for their environmental crimes? Absolutely. That said, many people are going to feel that they mostly just provide the products with which all Americans destroy the planet. Exxon doesn’t drive the fossil-fool powered wheelchairs to the big box stores to buy cheap plastic crap from China and out of season foods, we do. No corporation forces people to put off properly rebuilding their houses to proper insulation standards and they certainly don’t set the thermostats, we do. Since it is not possible to sue the entirety of America for the damage, I guess the corporations who have provided the tools and justifications for the coming catastrophe will just have to do. Who knows, if these companies get hit hard enough, we might actually see the cost of energy use rise high enough to get some behavioral change on the part of consumers